Love your enemies, exhorts the Bible; those who preach the doctrine, Nietzsche said, are “sweating while they do it”. The San Francisco-based data scientist turned novelist Cecilia Rabess somewhat agrees. Everything’s Fine, her much-hyped debut, is a blistering study of what it means to date your political opposite.
The novel opens on Jess’s first day of work at Goldman Sachs in New York City. There she meets Josh, an analyst who is a previous classmate. Jess is Black and liberal; Josh is white and conservative. At the Ivy League college they went to, they had clashed on everything from affirmative action to Obama (they were in their freshman year when Obama was first elected president). Now, a year after their graduation, Josh is Jess’s mentor and a “rising star” while Jess is struggling to learn the ropes and is despised by their managing director.
